1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a beverage bottling plant for filling bottles and like containers with a liquid beverage filling material and a conveyer arrangement for aligning and distributing packages containing filled bottles and like containers.
2. Background Information
Beverage bottling plants for filling bottles with a liquid beverage filling material are known.
Such bottling plants can possibly comprise a beverage filling machine with a plurality of beverage filling positions, each beverage filling position having a beverage filling device for filling bottles with liquid beverage filling material. The filling devices may have apparatus being configured to introduce a predetermined flow of liquid beverage filling material into the interior of bottles to a substantially predetermined level of liquid beverage filling material, and the apparatus configured to introduce a predetermined flow of liquid beverage filling material comprising apparatus being configured to terminate the filling of beverage bottles upon liquid beverage filling material reaching said substantially predetermined level in bottles. There may also be provided a conveyer arrangement being configured and disposed to move bottles, for example, from an inspection machine to the filling machine. Upon filling, a closing station closes filled bottles. There may further be provided a conveyer arrangement configured to transfer filled bottles from the filling machine to the closing station; as well as a loading station that is configured to load filled bottles into containers, for example, in a six-pack arrangement. There may also be provided a conveyor arrangement configured to transfer filled bottles from the closing station to the loading station.
Such six-pack containers or packages may require a conveyer arrangement for aligning and distributing, which conveyer arrangement may be positioned next in succession, for example, to a packaging machine that gathers cans, bottles, etc. into bundles, and this package bundle is delivered to further processing stations and/or palletizing arrangements, packaging being, for example, in cardboard boxes.
For this, it is required that the packages are delivered with a defined orientation, such as, for example, in the longitudinal direction or, for example, rotated by ninety degrees, as well as in a predetermined distribution, such as, for example, in a single-file arrangement or in double-file arrangement, to such further stations.
Hitherto, this was carried out with two arrangements, with the required rotation being carried out in one arrangement, and the corresponding distribution is carried out in the other arrangement.